White to Move, Mate in Two
by White Squirrel
Summary: One-shot. While spying on Voldemort in the Shrieking Shack, Harry gets an idea, and things change very fast.


Disclaimer: Harry Potter is owned by JK Rowling.

A/N: I was just finishing re-reading _Deathly Hallows_ when this idea suddenly came to me, and I wrote it in one go. There's a certain poetic symmetry about it, but unfortunately, it's far too anticlimactic for JK Rowling.

* * *

Harry crouched under the invisibility cloak in front of Ron and Hermione, just beyond the entrance to the Shrieking Shack. Peering through the gap between the crate and the wall, he could Snape's black robes swirling. He could hear Voldemort's harsh voice. Snape was asking, almost begging, it seemed, to be allowed to go up to the castle and bring Harry down here to Voldemort. In another time, Harry would have appreciated the irony.

But most of all, he saw Nagini, floating there in her protective magical bubble. He watched the coils of her body writhe and wondered if any spell he knew might penetrate that protection Voldemort had given her.

Harry's blood ran cold as he thought of the obvious answer. He'd already used the other two of Voldemort's favourite spells today. It was strangely fitting that the third would finish the job. He poked his wand out through the gap in the cloak, through the gap along the wall, and pointed at Nagini. _I have to mean it_, he thought. And to Ron's and Hermione's horror, he whispered, _"Avada Kedavra."_

The spell worked. The green light lanced out from his wand. The shield around Nagini popped like a soap bubble, and she twitched once before falling to the floor, dead.

Voldemort whirled around with a sort of prescience, as if he sensed the curse coming, but too late to stop it from striking. His eyes glowed like coals, and his snakelike nostrils flared as, with a wordless scream of rage, he thrust the Elder Wand at the only place the spell could have come from: the crates blocking the entrance to the tunnel.

An explosion filled the shack, splinters flying everywhere. A girlish scream emanated from somewhere beyond the entrance, and there was a grunt of pain as something thumped to the floor. The invisibility cloak fluttered aside, and Voldemort and Snape both saw him. Harry Potter lay on the floor, half buried in rubble. He looked up into Voldemort's eyes and winced in pain. He was struggling to get up, defiance in his eyes, but Voldemort was drawn to the wand in his hand. It wasn't the holly wand.

Harry felt the cold sense of purpose of Voldemort's murderous intent before he saw it, and he knew he had no way of getting out in time. Voldemort pointed his wand down at him and screamed, _"Avada Kedavra!"_

"_NO!"_ two voices shouted from behind as the green light struck Harry full in the face.

Severus Snape watched the scene in shock. Potter? _Here?_ And with the Killing Curse? He could barely believe what he was seeing, but there was no mistake. Potter had killed the snake, and the Dark Lord had killed Potter, all before Snape himself could get a spell off.

But, now, another marvel: when the Killing Curse hit Potter, the Dark Lord staggered. He seemed to have been stunned when he cursed Potter. Severus stared in amazement, but a fraction of a second later, his brain caught up with him. He knew this moment wouldn't last. Now was the crucial question: had Potter destroyed all the horcruxes? Two were accounted for before Dumbledore's death. Phineas Nigellus claimed the third was taken care of. The boy had stolen the fourth from Gringotts somehow and was hunting the fifth in the castle. He could only hope they were destroyed, too. Then, plus Nagini and Potter himself made all seven.

It would have to be enough. _This_ was for Lily. Severus Snape pointed his wand at Lord Voldemort and said, _"Avada Kedavra!"_

The moment the green light struck, Snape knew he had chosen right as his Dark Mark burned away from his arm. His one-time master's shell slumped to the floor, a look of shock in its empty eyes.

The movement in the room had not ceased. With a rumbling sound, the rubble was cleared away from the entrance, and Granger crawled into the room, followed by Weasley. Both looked shellshocked, and they looked from Snape, the only one left standing, to Voldemort's corpse, and back again with uncomprehending faces.

"Is it…is it over?" Granger whispered.

Snape regarded them closely. "You _did_ destroy all the other horcruxes, didn't you?" he asked.

They kept staring at him, dumbfounded.

Suddenly, Potter sat up and said, "Yeah, we did…Did we just win?"

And that finally broke Snape's composure. He staggered back, his hand clutched to his chest.

"Harry?" Hermione gasped.

"You're alive?" said Ron.

"_How?"_ she demanded.

"I…I dunno, exactly," Harry said as he pulled his legs out from under the rubble. "Something about being tied back to Voldemort's life through my blood? I didn't get it."

Snape struggled to regain his composure. "You…you were a horcrux, Potter."

"_WHAT!"_

"Dumbledore told me before he died," he said with a haunted look. "When the Dark Lord's Killing Curse rebounded on him when you were a baby, a piece of his soul broke off and latched onto you. You were…meant to die at the Dark Lord's hand to render him mortal."

Ron and Hermione gasped in horror, but when Harry thought about it, it had a ring of truth that ran deeper than mere knowledge. It was almost as if he'd known all along. "That…would actually explain a few things, Professor," he said.

"Oh?"

"Yeah. You see, I was just talking to Professor Dumbledore in some otherworldly version of King's Cross. He started explaining things, but it didn't quite make sense. Then, when I told him you were here in the Shrieking Shack with us, he got really confused, and then he freaked out and told me I had to get back right away. The next thing I heard was you casting the Killing Curse. Which was weird as hell, by the way, you casting it at Voldemort."

"Language, Potter," Snape chided. "It seems we will have much to discuss, but I can say now that I was _always_ against the Dark Lord."

None of the three Gryffindors seemed to know what to say about that. Finally, Hermione pivoted back around to the topic at hand. "And you just…came back?" she said incredulously.

"I guess. Dumbledore was saying something about being tethered to life when Voldemort took my blood. Whatever it was, I guess I've got a second chance, now. And…and we won…We won! It seems so strange to say that."

"Hold on," said Ron. "What happened to 'Neither can live while the other survives'?"

Harry shrugged: "Well, Voldemort _did_ kill me. I just got better." He looked down at the wand that had once been Draco Malfoy's in his hand, and another thought struck him. He staggered over to Voldemort's body and plucked the Elder Wand from his cold, dead hand. "Also, I'm pretty sure this is mine, now."


End file.
